Consilient: the concurrence of multiple inductions drawn from different data sets.
Induction: the process of deriving general principles from particular facts or instances.
Concurrence: agreement.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

It's just the usual noises

I'm traveling this week, so I spend time listening to non-NPR radio and am forced to endure Fox News in the lobby of hotels where they serve "breakfast."

I am getting tired of rebutting ignorant talking heads and poison spewers who want to further their own greed. But that seems to be where this blog is going.

I would prefer to look at an idea and write about the pro's and con's, you know, make some consilient inductions about stuff. Instead I write to counter speech that is neither enlightened nor informed. So along with [c]hristain radio, "Fox and Friends" I got to read a magazine in the lobby called Newsmax.

Newsmax is one of the nation's leading independent news site focusing on breaking news, politics, finance, personal health, technology and entertainment ...

Independent? Really, with articles titled:

Jeb Bush exclusive interview: Obama charting "dangerous" course

Jeb's real take on Sarah Palin

24 seats the GOP can grab in November

Exclusive: ADL'sFoxman gives Obama an 'F' grade

Whistle-blowers claim Voice of America is pro-Iran

Al Gore sees errors in climate claims

Should the U.S. Postal Service be scrapped?

Obama surrendering America's Internet control

Ben Stein: What scares me about Obama

Dick Morris: How Republicans will recapture the Senate

O'Reilly and Beck's "Bold and Fresh" tour

Prepare now for when Bush tax cuts expire

See a theme here?

It was Ben Stein's article that got me - again - wanting to counter a type of discourse that I find disappointing and destructive. Now Ben Stein is what I thought an intellectual, you know smart, reasoned, informed. All the things required to make a sound argument for or against something.

What he wrote was anything but and instead was just another drop of poison added to the water in an effort to perpetuate an agenda that Obama is the source of all that ails America (vote him out - vote us in).

Conservatives had eight years to make things work, they had Both the presidency and both houses of congress, and we ended up with no changes to our have/have not health system and an economic meltdown that should have been foreseen by those in charge (I saw it coming) and rectified. Instead the "best government is no government" approach was allowed to manifest itself firmly with 'what did you expect? results'.

So now we have a new guy in charge with new ideas. Eight years was enough time to get it rolling along smoothly. It didn't - which means those policies did not work, could have worked better, or only worked for some (the only ones that really mattered?).

There is a reason why guys like Ben Stein want nothing changed, why Rick Perry wants government to be inconsequential in our lives. They have everything they need and change could - could mind you - change that balance.

It is true that a rising tide raises all boats but it is also true that keeping the number of boats in the bay as low as possible means more available for those lucky enough to be in a boat. There is an atmosphere of greed being sold as real Americanism. We earned it - they get a free ride. A have and have-not society only leads to confrontation.

There is a need for reasoned debate on how to move this country forward. Right now the loud mouths are telling us that doing nothing is better than trying something different. That's good for them that have but not good for them that don't.

So that's how I see it - that's my bias, my slant, my mood. Now on to Ben Stein's Obama is scary article.